


Help me see myself clearer

by hgb, kimabutch (CWoodP)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Quarantine, Self-Harm, Shaving, canon-typical references to child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hgb/pseuds/hgb, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: "Four days into the quarantine, Hamid scratches roughly at the stubble growing on his chin. Yesterday, he’d asked Zolf for a razor, but the dwarf returned after consulting Wilde with a troubled frown. No unnecessary risks, Wilde had said. Not until they passed quarantine. So Hamid waits, rubbing stubble-roughened skin as if he could somehow will away the hair growing on his face."
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Azu
Comments: 43
Kudos: 140





	Help me see myself clearer

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "I'll Be Good" by Jaymes Young. This is mostly Bryn's fault for saying why Hamid wouldn't ever grow a moustache.

Four days into the quarantine, Hamid scratches roughly at the stubble growing on his chin. Yesterday, he’d asked Zolf for a razor, but the dwarf returned after consulting Wilde with a troubled frown. No unnecessary risks, Wilde had said. Not until they passed quarantine.

So Hamid waits, rubbing stubble-roughened skin as if he could somehow will away the hair growing on his face. Azu watches with thinly veiled worry in her eyes and he feels guilty. Weak. It’s such a silly thing to be bothered by, really, such a minor discomfort. He shouldn’t be troubling her with something so trivial. Not when he wakes up to her chest heaving with muffled, hidden sobs, not when she holds him like he’ll drop away to wherever Sasha and Grizzop have gone.

He tries to ignore it, tries to keep his hands occupied, but his constant fidgeting causes even Zolf to look at him with concern. 

“Hamid.” Azu reaches out, gently pulling his hand away, tucking it between both of hers. “Are you alright?”

He looks down, feeling foolish, and she doesn’t press him. Instead, she keeps his hand in hers and starts telling him about the village of her youth, of Kenya — of the giant, beautiful mountains so far from this tiny dark cage. He lets her soothing words wash over him, warm him like the sunlight in her stories, until he no longer thinks of the hair creeping onto his face. 

* * *

It could just be that he doesn’t like how it feels, Azu thinks as she holds Hamid’s hands. He’s been scratching in his sleep again, but fortunately their usual sleeping positions — Hamid tucked into Azu’s lap as she leans against the wall — allows her to bring his hands down from his face once again. She doesn’t blame him. The feeling of her bald head growing into a buzzcut irritates her in the way that every small thing does in this cage. It feels dirty, somehow. Or maybe it’s just the loss of power, not being able to take care of her own appearance. 

Looking down at Hamid’s face, though, Azu wonders if there’s something else to it. The stubble on his neck and cheeks makes him look older, creates sharp lines on his face even as the effect of his sorcerer’s robe has worn off. Something to the changes seems familiar, and Azu stares for a moment before it hits her. The facial hair may be short, still, and far from perfectly manicured, but — he looks like his father. 

Azu shivers, remembering Saleh’s harsh face, eyebrows knitted together in cold judgement whenever he looked at Hamid. Despite the visual similarities, Hamid’s peaceful, sleeping expression is so different from anything Azu saw in his father. Even in Hamid’s angriest moments, defending Sasha from Eldarion or yelling at Grizzop in frustration, Azu’s never seen that coldness in him. He cares, cares with a passion that makes her heart swell with love for him. 

She pulls Hamid in closer and tries to sleep. 

* * *

All the prestidigitation in the world couldn’t make Hamid feel clean after a week in the cage, and it takes him almost an hour in the bath to wash every crevice. Finally, when the itching on his cheeks becomes unbearable, he emerges. Freedom in the form of lather and a straight-razor beckon from across the room, but as he steps closer, he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror. He stands frozen, staring into his father’s face, and his hands begin to shake. 

_Disappointment. Embarrassment. Failure._

He hears his father’s voice inside his head, berating him for his mistakes, tearing into him, shredding him to pieces. 

_“If all you do is run around, trying to impress Father, I think you might be wasting your time… I don’t think you should want to.”_

But he’d done just that. He’d followed his father’s lead, supported his plans, desperate to finally feel his approval. Always wanting to impress, to please, he found himself walking in the footsteps of a man he’d sworn never to become. 

He’s tried so hard to become someone else, someone better, but can he honestly say that he never overstepped for the supposed “good of the family”? A surge of pride runs through him with every fireball that clears enemies from the path and he feels powerful, valuable, useful, even as his attempts to protect his friends leave destruction in his wake and haunt his dreams at night. Does he wield his power with greater care than his father? Or is he simply a different form of bully? Again and again he makes mistakes, and his desperate attempts to atone never seem to even the score.

He clutches the razor in trembling fingers and, without bothering to lather up, attacks his father’s image in quick, rough strokes. Unsteady hands slip and blood wells up from tiny cuts across his face. His shoulders shake in stifled sobs and the cuts burn and sting as tears stream down his cheeks. 

_Pathetic. Irresponsible. Foolish._

* * *

The grip of the straight razor feels good in Azu’s hand, but not as good as her smooth, bald head under her fingertips. With every stroke of the razor, she can feel herself relaxing, her whole body untensing after a week of confinement. She splashes another bucket of water — lukewarm, but she’s had worse — on her head and shoulders, towels off, and wraps herself in the robe that Zolf laid out for her. 

Azu hasn’t heard Hamid leave his bath, so walking past his bathing room, she’s not surprised to see him through a crack in the door, fully clothed but still standing over the sink, looking at his reflection in the mirror. What she’s not expecting are the tears running down his face, the shaking of his hands, half-turned to claws as he tries to shave off the remaining patches of facial hair, or the cuts on his face from where he’s slipped. 

She freezes, unsure whether to step in. She recognizes the guilt in his eyes whenever he lets her see his pain, knows too well his complicated feelings about his family. She doesn’t want to embarrass him. Another look at the blood mingling with tears on his face, though, and Azu can’t help herself. He's her best friend. He's all she's got. 

"Would you like me to help?" Azu says quietly, sliding the door open slightly. Hamid turns towards her, staring at her wordlessly with bloodshot eyes, his expression a mixture of shame and defeat. After a long moment, he nods.

Azu enters and approaches. Sitting down cross-legged by the sink, she pulls the straight razor from his trembling claw-hand and lays it on the floor beside her. Then, taking his other hand in hers, Azu beckons Hamid onto her lap.

“I’m here, it’s okay,” she murmurs, feeling his body tremble as she so often has during this last week. She brings both of her hands to his cheeks, nearly covering his face, and calls on Aphrodite. The warm, comforting power that’s left her for so many days returns, and Azu can feel the small cuts on Hamid’s face healing. She kisses the top of his head before letting go of his face. He’s stopped crying now and his breathing steadies and slows as she wipes the tears from his cheeks.

Reaching for the unused lather at the sink, she gently massages it into his face. She hesitates a moment, unsure of how this usually works. When he doesn’t offer any disagreement, she pulls her own straight razor from the pocket of her housecoat. Carefully holding his head in place, she begins shaving him. It’s awkward at first, his face so much smaller and more delicate than her head, and she nicks him once, accidentally slipping the razor into his skin. He barely winces, still dazed, but Azu whispers an apology, healing him again and applying more lather. 

By the second pass at his face, she’s become less awkward, more confident in each stroke. Settling on a rhythm, she begins to relax and quietly hums a lullaby from her youth — her father’s favourite, recalling memories of warm evenings after long days of work. Hamid’s eyes close as she starts to sing, and she feels the last threads of tension ease out of his body. Her song ends as she finishes the last stroke, and in comfortable silence, Azu wets a cloth and softly wipes off his face. 

"It's okay," Azu says, wrapping her arms around him and tucking his head under her chin. "You're you."


End file.
